March Madness!

So here I am.  Adventures of hair loss and Lap-Bander.  I went in for my 8th month follow up with Dr. Ellner on March 28th with my status update of not yet feeling full, even with the last fill.  She said there is sometimes "back squirt" - like a little leakage that occurs when one is getting a fill.  So I'm supposed to be at 8.5 ccs and Dr. Ellner actually unfilled my entire band and it showed that I was only 6.5 ccs full which confirmed, back squirt.  So she filled me to 8.5 ccs and I thought I was OK.  I loved the "full feeling."  I did however have complications (darn it). 

At Disneyland, with friends on April 4th, I was eating lunch and got stuck, felt my mouth get foamy and that horrible saliva frothing that I only read about on LapBandTalk.com.  I then ran to the closest bathroom to  cough up and throw up.  I felt fine after that but yuck.  A little pain in the band area but all-in-all fine.  I did however notice that I couldn't take big gulps of drink.  I would feel it get stuck.  I forced myself to ignore it because I loved that I was finally feeling restriction.

On Thursday, April 5th, I was eating a flour tortilla for lunch and took a drink of water and once again felt the frothing and yuckiness which caused me to have to expel again.  Once again, I didn't want to call the doctor right away in hopes that I could just work through this but I knew after I tried to take another sip of water and it was hard to get down that I would have to call.  I waited until the next morning to make the call.

Friday, April 6th - The doctor is not in her office that day but does emergency calls from another office, if needed.  I called Dr. Ellner's office and I was told that I needed to get fluid removed to loosen up the band.  I met Dr. Ellner within the hour and she was so nice and understanding about what I was going through.  She removed a full 2 ccs because she said the swelling needed to go down in my stomach before she could refill.  She said she could probably refill back up to 1.5 ccs but that 2 ccs was probably too much.

Now for the hair issue.  Hubby and I were just reviewing the photos and could not believe how much hair I've lost in a month.  I had appointment number two last week with the dermatologist for the steroid shots.  Horribly painful - I stopped counting after 30 shots in my head.  I think there were about 10 more after I stopped counting.  I am also going to acupuncture every two weeks as well as continuing the Rogaine regiment twice a day.  I am however very lazy when it comes to take the oral meds.  I hate taking them.